CALIFORNIA: Woman Back from India Has Difficult-to-Treat Strain of TB

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2007. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

CALIFORNIA: Woman Back from India Has Difficult-to-Treat Strain of TB

San Francisco Chronicle (12.28.07) - Friday, December 28, 2007
John Wildermuth

On Thursday, officials with the Santa Clara County Public Health Department and CDC were tracking down 44 airline passengers who sat near a woman who has multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB). The woman was diagnosed and being treated in India before she returned to the United States, flying on American Airlines Flight 293 from New Delhi to Chicago on Dec. 13.

The woman continued on to San Francisco International Airport, but officials do not consider passengers on the shorter journey to be in danger. CDC is focusing its investigation on notifying those on the transcontinental flight who were within two rows of the infected woman, contacting health officials in 16 states for help in screening a list of passengers for TB.

A person typically needs prolonged exposure to a person with active TB to become infected, so only plane rides of eight hours or more are of primary concern to health officials, said Shelly Diaz, a CDC spokesperson.

The woman was admitted to the emergency room at Stanford Hospital on Dec. 19. She is currently in stable condition and receiving treatment in an isolation unit, said Dr. Marty Fenstersheib, the Santa Clara County health officer. The patient will remain in isolation until she is no longer infectious, which could take weeks. MDR-TB is not more infectious but it is difficult to treat, he said, possibly requiring treatment for two years.

World Health Organization guidelines call for people who have MDR-TB to avoid all commercial air travel until a physician advises they are no longer infectious.
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